


In a Crowded Room Alone With You

by SullenDragon



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22125031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SullenDragon/pseuds/SullenDragon
Summary: The annual MCU Christmas-New Year's party isn't supposed to be a big deal. For some attendees, however, it just might change lives.
Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Kudos: 32
Collections: TSCC 12: Communication Without Dialogue





	In a Crowded Room Alone With You

Simon gestured to the large screen in the meeting room and stepped away, resuming his seat as the Year in Review film began to play. It was standard holiday party fare, made mostly of photos of MCU detectives in various silly situations. Blair chuckled into his paper cup at a picture of Henri crouched, hiding behind Rafe. Henri’s report on a closed case had been late, and Simon was standing in the door of his office, just barely within the bounds of the photograph, glaring at H and Rafe. The vaguely Christmas-themed music discouraged discussion, but didn’t always fit the photographs; there were several photos from crime scenes, cropped down to show only a pair of detectives leaning against each other, obviously exhausted, and one of a uniform handing a kitten over to its young owner.

Jim, seated to Blair’s left, shifted in his seat, drawing Blair’s attention away from a photograph of Serena’s mini-birthday party. Jim met Blair’s eyes, raising one eyebrow and tipping his head toward the projector screen. Blair grinned wryly, thinking of the way the acid-green icing on the chemistry-themed cupcakes had put Jim off pastries for weeks.

Jim glanced down at the flimsy paper plate on the desk in front of him. He plucked a cookie, coated with a thick layer of icing, from the middle and placed it on Blair’s plate. The slight whoosh of Jim’s breath against Blair’s neck made him shiver.

He pulled a macadamia nut cookie from the bottom of the pile that was his plate and waved it at Jim. Jim held his hand out and Blair handed over the cookie.

There was a rumble of laughter in the room, and Blair glanced at the screen. The film had shifted to newspaper clippings, with a handwritten tally off to the right, counting articles about MCU detectives. The laughter rumbled again when there were several shots of Jim in quick succession and the tally was traded for a small photo of Jim’s face and an infinity symbol.

Blair turned, intending to give Jim some shit over his faux fame, and sighed. Jim was scowling into his festive paper cup. Blair kicked his foot out, thumping the toe of his boot against the side of Jim’s dress shoe.

With obvious reluctance, Jim looked up from his cup. A mischievous impulse prompted Blair to kick him again, and he scooted his chair closer to Jim’s. Blair found himself suddenly close enough that he could lean into Jim’s shoulder easily.

The film wrapped up with a few more silly photographs -- some were obviously staged, but there was a group shot of each shift, taken the day before specifically for this video.

Blair leaned into Jim’s side, made himself at home against Jim’s warmth, just as comfortable as it had been when Jim first made Blair welcome in his house.

Jim bumped his knuckles against Blair’s, then left his hand resting there, on the tiny sliver of chair between them, a hair’s breadth from Blair’s hand.

With his other hand, Blair yanked a pen and notepad out from under a small stack of case files, and scribbled out a quick note.

 _Come home with me?_ he wrote. He ripped the page off the notepad, an ear-splitting rattle in the second of silence just before the film ended. Jim plucked the page from his hand amidst the roar of applause for the film’s creator.

Jim tucked the page into his shirt pocket, folded carefully, and turned to whisper in Blair’s ear, “Always.”


End file.
